 Okay. Well, I think we've given folks sufficient time to get on. Hopefully more will jump on. I want to welcome you all here today to the Mexico Smart Grid Center webinar series. My name is Ann Jekyll. I'm the Associate Director of New Mexico EPSCORE and co-PI of the New Mexico Smart Grid Center. And we're so pleased today to have two presenters for you from the State Energy Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Laura Taper and Jacqueline Waite. And I'll introduce them in just a moment, but I just wanted to let you all know that the best way to ask questions throughout these presentations is through the question and answer interface through the Zoom webinar. So you can locate that there and type in your questions at any time and we will moderate them and field them that way. Also wanted to let you know we can post the slides after this webinar too. So if there's something that you want to see after you, you see it, you can access them there. Well, I have all of you. I just wanted to let you know about our next webinar, which will be August 26 at noon. Alison Brody from Explorer Science Museum will be giving a webinar on communicating your science. And it's critically important that the public be aware of your science and also that our funder keep funding us through communicating our science well. And Explorer Museum has great expertise in teaching scientists how to communicate to the public and also has a program, a science communication training for New Mexico EPSCORE researchers that you can join. So please plan to put that on your calendar and join us next month. So I'd like to introduce our speakers today, who will be talking on New Mexico's climate strategy and electricity sector implications. We have two folks from the New Mexico Energy Minerals Natural Resources Department or M nerd in the energy conservation and management division. Laura Tabor is the sustainability and resilience officer there, and she coordinates climate action across state agencies throughout New Mexico through the New Mexico climate change task force. She's the engineers of experience and clean energy and climate work and also holds an engineering degree so like many in our project comes from the engineering background, and a masters of public administration. Jacqueline weight is a clean energy program manager also in the energy conservation and management division, and she's leading the state's grid modernization roadmap development process which is very relevant to our projects topic area. She's also going to be managing the grid modernization grant program. Prior to coming to state government she was an Oak Ridge Institute for science and education postdoctoral fellow at the US Environmental Protection Agency, and she has a PhD in geographical sciences. So with that, I think I will turn it over to Laura she can grab control of the screen for me and pull up her slides and get going. How does this look. It looks great. Wonderful. Well, thank you and for the opportunity for both of us to come be your guests today and talk a little bit more about how the state climate change task forces working towards our goals. And, you know, as and said, I started almost a year ago at the state as the sustainability and resilience officer coordinating the climate change task force on behalf of our co chairs, which are the Emner cabinet secretary secretary and secretary Kenny at the environment department. So, what we'll do today is I will start by giving an overview of the climate strategy report that we released last fall, and transition from that into some of the work that our climate change task force has ongoing. And we'll get into some more specifics and show some examples of that that are particularly relevant to the electricity sector and the work of those on this webinar today. So, before diving in I wanted to give a quick overview for those who aren't familiar of the climate change task force and just the backdrop of climate policy in the state. So, Governor Lujan Grisham issued executive, her executive order on climate change and waste prevention. Last January was the third executive order that she signed in office. And that task, the executive order did a number of things so it created the climate change task force which is made up of the cabinet secretary or a designate from every state agency. And it also set a number of goals and some specific policy directives, and then it directed the task force to integrate climate adaptation and mitigation practices into agency policies. So that's the work that I've been coordinating. Now the goals that were set are very ambitious. Our governor has been clear that you know we have these ambitious targets and we need to be taking strong action to meet those targets. Our goal is to reduce our emissions by 45% relative to 2005 levels by 2030. And what you're seeing here is the best data that we currently have on our emissions in the past and what we think they could look like in the future. And we do have some ongoing research happening right now to get some updated data on our emissions trajectories and sort of policy scenarios but I think one thing is pretty clear that even if these numbers change a little bit, we know we have a lot of work to do. So we've already covered a lot of ground since the beginning of this administration kind of turning the ship of state government and I'll cover some highlights as we go through each sector. But what I want to emphasize here is you can see each of these circles are areas where we have actions underway, and they span every sector of our economy from electricity generation to transportation. The industrial sector and oil and gas, but also the built environment and natural and working lands. And so what I'm going to do now is go through each of these sectors, as well as the work that we're doing on adaptation and resilience, and summarize the strategies that we've laid out in that 2019 report as well as a few updates from the past few months. So starting with electricity generation, as most of you likely know in 2019, New Mexico passed the energy transition act, which is one of the most aggressive renewable portfolio standards in the country. And it requires our investor owned utilities to transition to 80% renewable energy by 2040 and 100% carbon free energy by 2045. So we know that meeting those goals is going to require big changes in our electricity system, not just in terms of where power is coming from but also how it gets from these new renewable resources to consumers within and beyond our state. So at a large scale, what this means is looking at our transmission needs across the state and the renewable energy transmission authority or Rita has been working on a study which should be released soon at transmission needs within the state. And then at a smaller scale looking at distributed energy resources, and there's 2019 legislation that is aimed at facilitating more pace programs paces property assessed clean energy. It's a processing tool that can really accelerate distributed solar development in particular, and then another memorial from 2019 has requested additional study of micro grids within state government, sort of this leading by example area. So looking at how to get more distributed clean energy developed. And I'll talk a bit more about a program that our general services department has launched with the state buildings green energy project that includes a lot of solar installations on state buildings. And I want to also go over some legislative updates from 2020. So Jacqueline will talk in more detail about House bill 233, the energy grid modernization roadmap. This bill directed Emner to develop a grid modernization roadmap. It also established a grant program and allows utilities to recover certain costs from grid modernization projects. And we also reinstated a solar income tax credit that will incentivize additional distributed solar generation across the states. And then House bill 50 made some transmission projects eligible for industrial revenue bonds, which are a financing tool that local governments can use. And that reduces some barriers to these projects development. And then lastly, while broader public, public regulation Commission reform efforts were not successful, House bill 386 did include provisions that would clarify how the commission structure or utility commission structure would change if other November ballot measure, which would transition our commission from elected to appointed would pass. So moving on to transportation. There's two main parts of our sort of broad state policy the first being trying to increase increase the number of clean vehicles that are adopted in the state and then also trying to reduce the number of miles that all vehicles drive for vehicle miles traveled BMP. So in terms of increasing clean vehicle adoption, although our 2020 EV tax credit bill was not successful, we are looking into additional ways to incentivize both EV adoption and infrastructure availability. Back in April, the environment department awarded funding from the Volkswagen settlement to 43 EV infrastructure projects across the state. And once those are built, it will greatly increase EV users ability to get around the state with ample places to recharge utilities are also filing plans for EV incentive programs, and that's required by law by 2019 house bill 521. And we're also a part of the Rev West Coalition, which is a group of Western states that are committed to electrifying the major highways that connect our states. And as sort of an add on to that this month the Federal Highway Administration approved. And it will involve our major highways as active or pending alternative fuel corridors, and what that means is that it will be eligible for certain funding sources. And then also give us the opportunity to have some better signage and advertisement that we have this commitment to alternative fuels including electric vehicles and give people confidence that that infrastructure is is either in place already or coming soon. And last year, last thing on clean vehicle adoption, our governor announced that the environment department will be developing low emission vehicle or live and zero emission vehicle reserve standards, which are the clean car standards developed by California that a number of states have also adopted. We complement our efforts on adopting clean vehicles we're also improving our relationships and starting to do more work with local and regional governments on how we can reduce vehicle miles traveled. And we're doing a lot of engagement with the Metropolitan planning organizations or MPOs to learn how we can best support their efforts on improving improving public transit service and other types of transportation like biking or walking. In terms of leading by example on transportation, our General Services Department has already bought two EVs with funding that was appropriated in the 2019 session. So that funding should take us from one to 30 EVs in the next couple of years, and GSD is also looking at installing several charging stations around Santa Fe State campus campuses. So oil and gas in the industrial sector is a huge piece of the emissions profile in New Mexico, and a big part of that is methane. So you can see on this slide that well in New Mexico methane is 31% of our greenhouse gas emissions nationally it's only 10%. So reducing methane emissions in particular from the oil and gas sector has been a huge priority for this administration. There's been some extensive stakeholder engagement through the methane advisory panel over the past year. And this week actually both the Environment Department and Amnerd announced preliminary draft rules and with the intent of going to hearings with rules and completing that formal regulatory process by the end of the year. So that's really exciting. And then also in the industrial sector, you know, once the Environment Department gets through the methane rules and they'll be turning to HFCs hydrofluorocarbons which are another shorter lived but much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. So in the built environment, this is where we've sort of focused on energy efficiency but also cleaner and greener infrastructure. In 2019, we had some wins in terms of the extension and updates of the Efficient Use of Energy Act, which establishes and continues utility energy programs. We do have some goals in terms of what we'd like to see in future updates to that act. And in the meantime, we are in the process of updating our building codes to the most recent standards from the International Energy Code Commission, and looking at options for expanding energy efficiency programs, particularly for low income New Mexicans. And there was an effort in the past session to push through a bill on this, which was not successful, but we are, Emnerd is working with a grant from the Department of Energy called the Financial Resilience through Energy Efficiency Grant. So there's a lot of analysis happening through that project to identify policies that can most effectively increase energy efficiency for all of our residents. Now, in terms of infrastructure, we're not just thinking about buildings, but also what kind of materials we're using for roads. And again, working with the MPOs and other regional planning bodies on urban planning and transit design, and how we connect rural communities, both physically but also with internet access to make more amenities available without excessive driving. And this build environment section is also an area where we have a lot going on within the state government. I mentioned the green buildings project, and that's capturing everything from sort of typical building upgrades to data center upgrades and consolidation. And in addition to that project, we are looking at ways to increase performance standards for state buildings. There's currently an executive order in place from the Richardson administration. We're linking into how we can update that to sort of the latest and greatest efficiency technologies. And then we're also relaunching a group of state facility and energy managers. So that agencies can really focus on reducing their energy use through more than just big renovation projects. So last sector in terms of reducing emissions is natural and working lands. And we have a number of things ongoing here, our forestry division at Emnerd, our mining division here and the Department of Agriculture have been collaborating really closely and looking into a lot of ways that we can better manage our natural resources with climate in mind. So healthy soils, revegetation, reforestation and forest rehabilitation are all tools that these departments are looking at. And have been pretty engaged with the US Climate Alliance, which New Mexico is a member of, to learn even more about ways that we can make progress in this sector. And forestry is working on finalizing their forest action plan. It's a 10-year strategic plan that really guides everything that the division does and how they do their work. And they have strongly prioritized climate mitigation and adaptation practices in that plan, which they're in the process of finalizing now. We've also made commitments to kind of up the ante on the research we're doing in this sector in terms of how can we really improve the way that we're quantifying how land produces and absorbs carbon so we can better understand what types of practices, whether it's managing grasslands or agriculture or forests to increase how much carbon we're sequestering. So another piece of the executive order that the governor issued last year was to explore market mechanisms and you may have heard of cap and trade or fee and dividend or carbon pricing. All of these are ways to use market forces to decrease the amount of carbon that we're emitting. And the first step for us here is to complete a more robust inventory and policy analysis to figure out how far the policies that we have now and that we're planning to implement going to get us towards our greenhouse gas emission targets. And once we get a handle on that, and I mentioned there's a study ongoing on that right now, we'll have a better sense of how much we need the market to fill in. And we're sort of taking our time on this in part because economics suggests that larger markets can be more successful and assessing regional options can take some time. So we were definitely making strides on this and keeping our eyes open for what the best approach will be. So I'll transition now into adaptation and resilience. Our executive order was, you know, there's a lot on the emissions side but another important piece is actually adapting to the changing climate that we're already seeing today. You know, we know that that's happening and while we're working very hard to limit the extent of that change, you know, we need to be realistic, and we want New Mexico to be resilient in the face of that. And this means a lot of the word resilience means a lot of things to different people. And the way that we use it is in a few different ways. So in terms of economic resilience, we want to maintain a diverse economy and make sure that we support communities that are transitioning away as coal plants retire. And we also want to have resilient communities. So we need to stay aware of public health risks, make sure that people across the state stay safe. And the ongoing pandemic is a huge reminder of how important this is. We also want our infrastructure to be able to withstand extreme climate events, and we can take steps to limit the damage and repairs that come from floods and fires if we're planning that infrastructure with climate in mind. And then lastly, we need to manage our natural resources in a way that maintains their ability to sustain us. So I'll go through each of these areas and then we'll start getting into more of what the task force is working on now. In terms of economic transition, the energy transition act in addition to the clean energy targets that it set also provides several tools that can help the state manage our transition away from fossil fuel generated electricity. So the workforce solutions department has already been convening a group to work on implementing this. And beyond that, the state is committed to expanding education and training opportunities in the clean energy sector. Also, as our renewable energy generation grows, and we're looking to attract through the economic development department companies that are looking for low carbon electricity as part of their own corporate sustainability goals. And then within the state government, we are looking into and General Services Department is starting to implement some green procurement practices by updating price agreements and looking into how we could update our bidding preferences so that we can favor companies that are using more sustainable practices. In terms of public health, the Department of Health, despite everything else on their plate right now, has been doing some really great work on analyzing the health effects of climate change. They've been working through a framework from the CDC. They've updated their heat advisories and and then the Environment Department's Occupational Health Bureau is also planning to develop standards for heat and heat related illness and how to prevent that in the workplace. And then also related to health as part of our exploration of, you know, expanding our energy efficiency programs we want to make sure that we're also integrating health effects that can be co benefits of weatherization work through energy efficiency. In terms of emergency management and preparedness, you know this this is a huge area there's a lot going on across different agencies. We're actually here at Emnered in the process of hiring a resilience coordinator. And so that in addition to the excellent work that individual agencies are doing we can really be more coordinated more systematic about how state agencies are preparing for the effects of climate change and also helping local governments do the same. Both the Environment Department and the Department of Transportation are looking at ways to kind of push local governments to think about this by adding climate related project award criteria to their funding applications when they're giving out funding to local governments. We also have an urban forestry program. And the Department of Transportation is building some kind of green infrastructure best practices into their long range planning guidance. So lastly, you know water is a precious and limited resource in our climate here in New Mexico. And in addition to the continuing work of work that the Office of the State Engineer that's OSC is doing as well as through the drought Task Force and the 50 year water plan. And we're trying to stay engaged in all of those ongoing activities with the Climate Change Task Force, and then separately the New Mexico Environment Department is looking into several of the areas that they oversee to really increase how we're addressing climate change impacts on on water supply. So, you know, last year's report was an initial strategy, it was all the things that we had underway or were committed to already. But there's a lot of areas where there are new ideas where we're looking to maybe turn a goal into action. And so, to move into that, once we released that report last year, we took a step back and thought about how we wanted to use the Climate Change Task Force and formed these 10 climate action teams. You know climate policy is very broad, and it can feel very overwhelming if it's not clear sort of which pieces your work overlaps with. And so we're asking Task Force members to work together on these more focused interagency teams to collaborate on some very specific areas. So we have Department of Transportation, the Environment Department and Emnerd and many others, you know, focusing on transportation, how do our jurisdictions complement each other, how can we be working together. And using these teams to kind of organize our planning and make sure that we're making progress on the goals that we've set out. And the purpose of these teams is to improve the communication between agencies specifically on, you know, different policy areas, and also to make sure that we're talking to each other and compiling all of the efforts in particular areas in one place. And that makes my coordination job a little bit easier. And it also, by having agencies talking to each other on a more regular basis, it's been incredible to see the new ideas and strategies that come out of those discussions to find out how we're going to push things further beyond the policies that we've already undertaken. So, in order to kind of give you a bit more of a picture of how this is working, we're going to give an overview of two different teams. So I'll talk a little bit about the energy efficiency team, which you see their goals here on the slide. And then Jacqueline will talk a bit more about the clean energy and grid modernization team. So this slide shows the six goals for the energy efficiency team. And that's based on both that 29 report 2019 report that I just gave an overview of and kind of ongoing ideation and discussion within the team. So you can see here, as I mentioned, we're working on adopting building codes and I'll zoom in on that goal in just a moment. And we're also looking into ways that we can update the efficient use of energy act in the future to see if we can use a cost test that better reflects the full benefits of energy efficiency and make potentially more more energy efficiency measures cost effective. We also want to increase funding for low income energy efficiency programs and incorporate health measures. We are looking to adopt new energy performance standards for state projects, and then more broadly we also are looking into different tools or structures or programs in part through the free grant which I mentioned earlier. And to accelerate the pace and scale of energy efficiency upgrades, there's a lot of great work happening in the state. But if we want to meet these ambitious goals that it needs to come up a level. And then lastly, Jacqueline's been involved in this as well, we're looking at developing educational materials to roll out a campaign to change behavior across the state. As I mentioned, we'll kind of, you know, what the teams have done is taken each of these goals and broken them down into, you know, what are specific milestones and actions and who's going to take what action to make progress. And for this one, because it's a regulatory process it's a bit more clear cut in terms of a notice of proposed rules which has already occurred and then the hearing for these new building codes which will affect all new construction in the state. So that's just updating both the residential and commercial codes. That hearing is set for next week. And then, following that hearing there will be a final rule issued, and that will turn and lead into implementation. So that's just an example of how we're sort of taking these big goals and breaking them down and getting them across the finish line. And Jacqueline's going to give another example now with the clean energy and grid modernization team. Okay, thank you Laura. So as Laura mentioned, we have a few goals. Also for the clean energy and grid modernization climate action team. The first one that I'll be talking about more in detail is coordinating the efforts to develop roadmap for grid modernization. The second one is about providing support and outreach for PACE programs. And we have some efforts going on right now regarding looking at what other states are doing and trying to adapt what could possibly work best for New Mexico. As Laura mentioned, we are also talking a lot about transmission and transmission corridors and she mentioned Vita's effort in this regard, and I'll talk a little bit about that also in regard to grid modernization. We also, as Laura mentioned, have legislative mandate to look at microgrids and those impacts on the distribution side of the grid, which I think a lot of you are probably out there working on. And then the last goal is really to help us implement our goals, particularly the ones that are related to providing access, affordability, and really thinking about equity issues and expanding renewable energy programs. So we've kind of put ourselves on the hook to seek out funding sources when available. You know, we're in a weird time right now to somehow action, actionableize, is that a word, to enact some of these other ideas that we have. So next slide please. So this is the high level slide that we have included in our plan describes the plan milestones for the grid modernization. So, and I'll talk more in detail about this but we are planning on convening experts in this regard, and particularly those who are who are tapped into the technologies around grid modernization, those who are in burst in the utility business model aspects and the financial aspects of grid modernization, and those folks who are adept and tuned with the policies around grid modernization or energy projects in general. So hopefully to, to execute the second part of that mandate. Again, we, we need to find some funding but the idea is to take what we get in the roadmap and be able to fund some of those implementation efforts going forward. So more on that, maybe in a few months. Next slide please. So this slide is about the fact that there are many policies that are bearing on grid modernization. I just want to touch on a couple of them. Of course there's the grid modernization roadmap and grant program HP 233. And this one's obviously important it directs us to develop that roadmap and grant program. And while it doesn't tell us what grid modernization should be and I think that's a good thing because it allows for some flexibility. It does provide a set of functional requirements. So things like integrating renewable energy and storage, demand side management and efficiency. Microgrids, advanced metering infrastructure to support electric vehicle charging, hardening and resilience improvements, cybersecurity and customer service. And I think this is a good time to stress that our grid modernization efforts are primarily focused on the distribution side of the grid. So, the other goal of course is the Energy Transition Act. And the, I put the bullets up here to remind us that the ETA is really about utility retail sales. And theoretically we could get to or near 100% of clean energy or carbon zero sources with the addition of large scale utility projects in the state and building out more transmission. And these efforts are already underway as we've talked about with Rita's efforts, but the same time we have a lower case energy transition going on in the form of policies that are promoting distributed energy resources and the solar market development, development tax credit past this year, which is a renewal of a previous credit that isn't that is one of those forces that is kind of pushing the envelope and forcing the issue of distribution side modernization. There are also other federal tax credits, there are federal reliability mandates, there are state efficiency laws and other policies that play into grid modernization so want to keep those in mind. Next slide please. One of the things we've been working on is a report which would give us a summary of New Mexico's electricity system, as it stands now or at least as of a couple of years ago. And we are collecting data from publicly available data from the energy information agency, yeah. And we also did a survey of the state utilities so we surveyed the state use the rural cooperatives and municipal utilities. And so this slide represents some of those highlights. So the image on the left, that's showing you that nationally, the grid is mostly distribution and this is what we like to point to we've gotten some raised eyebrows when we when we talk about our focus on the distribution side. And we like to point this out and this proportion is bearing out in New Mexico as well. So this is primarily distribution, when it comes to miles of infrastructure and technology. And of course with the cooperatives that are mostly distribution or energy distributors. This is definitely the case. The right is showing you that some statistics from 2019 that the state added 50 lots of distributed solar, sorry 57 and 50 of those were distributed so on the distribution side. Sorry, seven, seven of those are utility scale size. The, as I mentioned the cooperatives are primarily focused on distribution and it's not surprising I think that they are a little bit further along and adopting distribution technologies we're finding that in our survey in terms of advanced metering and sensing technologies and other technologies to help manage that side. So I just wanted to point out that given the generation mix that we've been that we are going to be reporting the that New Mexico is pretty close to meeting near term goals. So I think the point is, we don't need to panic yet. Right. When it comes to meeting at least our ETA goals. So I'll tell you a little bit about the process that we're envisioning the first bullet here is about the process that we're adapting is from this gentleman Robert fall who's out of Cambridge. And he's been doing, he and his colleagues have been doing road mapping since the mid 90s they started with Motorola, and we're primarily focused on technology road mapping, but they have the applications have expanded greatly. And the main questions are of course where are we going. Where are we now and that's why we're doing this baseline report so we all are on the same page when it comes to where we are. And then how do we get there and that's what our experts are going to be working on. And if you look at the diagram. This is the, you know the template model roadmap framework and I think it works pretty well if you consider that blue section that market section on top is kind of represents our policy folks and our policies that are in place. And that's, in a sense, a proxy for what consumers are demanding. If you think about the yellow section as the utility business folks who are trying to respond to those policy demands and create products and services that customers will actually appreciate and want to pay for. And then you think about the green section the technology folks that are the engineers within the utilities, but also the folks at the labs and other places that are generating this is kind of cutting edge things and trying to design systems that are efficient, and we'll meet those utility needs. So we, we think it works pretty well and we. So we're adopting that framework for our roadmap. Secondly, we are relying pretty heavily on the DOE modernizing the distribution grid volumes I think I got that title wrong actually. So I'll correct it before we put that up. So we are pulling several things from there one of one of which is a list of attributes that DOE come up with when they did a meta analysis of other states that have come up with district grid modernization road maps. So here's where we're considering New Mexico specific things such as affordability such as access, such as reliability, so things that are important to New Mexicans. And within that affordability we're looking at, you know the energy burden that New Mexicans have right now and how the grid, how these modern modernization efforts might impact that. And of course, like many other sources, we have the technology inventory in that volume that three set volume, and some interesting design configurations are ways of thinking about the future I think which are helpful. When we think about doing this because we could go anywhere right theoretically and so it's helpful to be grounded a bit in what are some possibilities. And so then the third bullet is about our advisory group we're hoping to convene. So starting late next month through October. Again, we are dividing folks up into technical economic and policy subgroups. And those groups will be producing white papers at the conclusion of those meetings and those white papers will inform the development of the roadmap which will be this graphic here but also a narrative report. So we have that drafted by the end of 2020. So that's, I think that's it for me. Great. Thanks Jacqueline. And I see we've already gotten a couple questions in so I'll just go over a couple quick closing slides and then make sure that we have some time to get to those questions. So, you know, I think in terms of the climate change task force overall, and as well as some of these very specific areas that we've just gone over. There's been an amazing amount of progress, particularly given the pandemic and the restrictions and changes in our personal and professional lives. But, you know, recognize that there's a lot of changes in our state right now and across the country in the world. And so as we move through as gone through the past few months and as we're looking ahead to our long term goals. I want to just emphasize three things that we're focused on. So, first, we're looking for ways to integrate climate priorities into economic recovery from the pandemic, both here in New Mexico and also as relates to national policy, and the US Climate Alliance submitted a letter with recommendations on this yesterday to congressional leaders in Washington. And, you know, we're remaining intentionally or intentional about centering racial justice and equity in our climate work, both because the effects of climate change will likely disproportionately affect low income communities. And also because we want to make sure that our transition to a clean energy economy doesn't leave communities behind. And then throughout all of this, we are working to make progress on our immediate priorities while also planning, researching and strategizing ways to meet our long term goals. What we have on the horizon for the task force is preparing to release an updated climate strategy report this fall, continuing to deliver on the directives from the governor's executive order. And identifying research policy and projects to move us towards our long term targets. We're also looking at planning some stakeholder and community outreach opportunities so if you're interested in being a part of those please feel free to reach out. And I want to close just by bringing us back to how climate change affects so much of how the world works. A little over a year ago I was finishing up grad school and thinking about whether I wanted to jump back into energy and climate work after my program or do something broader. Part because climate while something that I've been passionate about my whole life has often feel felt very siloed from everything else is can be a bit of an echo chamber that's, you know, outside of everyone else's frame of reference. But really it touches everything and if we're going to make a difference on it. We need it to be another dimension of how we do everything instead of its own silo. And I think that the structure of the task force here in New Mexico where we have representatives from all different agencies. I think it's really unique and embodies this ethos of sort of baking climate change into how we operate. And it pushes us to work through how to actually implement policy in a way that sticks as we move forward. And I've been consistently impressed at how a staff from across agencies with different levels of background on all of this have been really rising to the occasion and getting this work done. And I'm very confident that we'll continue making progress and have a lot more updates to share soon. So in the meantime, happy to take questions and talk a bit more about the presentation today. Laura and Jacqueline, thank you so much. In normal zoom meetings, you know, you can do those little emojis with class. I was looking for it, but I guess they strip it out in the interface here because I learned so much from your presentations and also extremely impressed to hear about how much coordination there is among the New Mexico's agencies. I know it can operate a lot like academia where everybody has their little area and they don't talk across units. And so to hear that level of coordination is great. So I'll I can moderate these questions and I wanted to remind everybody on the webinar today that you can put your questions in that Q&A box and let's take advantage of this expertise while we have it here for any questions you might have and I'll just start at the top. The first question was when you're talking about retiring the whole plants in the Four Corners region and a good question about what's going to happen to the workers from those plants, which I know has been a big sensitivity and something that's written a bit into the ETA. Sure. And, and it's it is a really important question and it's one that we keep asking because it's also really difficult to solve. I think that, you know, the Department of Workforce Solutions has been trying to really work with communities and having communities drive, you know, how that transition takes place and making sure that they have access to resources and funding to kind of help with that transition, but also not wanting to sort of come in with a solution that somebody thinks is great but the community might not agree with. And so, you know, there's there's no single answer to this question, but the broader goals of diversifying the economy, and then also I believe and I'll have to double check what the exact provisions are in the ETA. But I know that in these conversations across the country, not just in New Mexico, I'm kind of early retirement options are often a piece of the puzzle for older workers in particular. Yeah, and I think I know too they have some funds for job retraining but what those jobs will be is a question and I actually heard yesterday on a on a call that the jobs just won't go away when the plants retire because there is a lot of decommissioning that needs to be done and also mine reclamation for the coal plants. So there's a little bit of a ramp and period to figure it out. Okay, the next question is how or will Emnerd research needs with regard to carbon reduction and energy efficiency be included in the governor's new state science and technology plan. And this so the science state science and technology plan is something that F score pays a lot of attention to because we model our grants, our grant themes, have to tie back to the state S&T plan. So, we've seen some of the economic development priorities and haven't seen carbon reduction or water energy efficiency on them do you know if those are factoring into the economic development or state science and technology priorities. I'm not familiar with the ins and outs of that particular plan, but I do know that clean energy is one of the sectors that's a priority in terms of this broader diversification effort for the administration. And I'm glad that this was brought up because it gives me another thing to try to make sure that we embed ourselves into. Okay, we can talk about that afterwards about who you should bother about the state S&T plan. Okay, so the other question I think was on the slide when you were detailing the energy efficiency part of the climate action plan, and it says what the health measures have to do with energy efficiency. Sure, I think there's a lot of kind of intersections for health and energy efficiency I'll just name the few one is indoor air quality. And this can can cut both ways. You know if you're weatherizing a home and making it much tighter and reducing the amount of infiltration. And if there are, if you're not addressing things like, I guess maybe it's not so much an issue in New Mexico but mold is a classic example. You can actually decrease air quality by doing that energy efficiency work and so by kind of bringing a health lens into energy efficiency, you can make sure that you're not creating those issues while doing the important efficiency work. There's also issues around indoor air quality with, you know, either burning wood in a home or converting to electric heat a more efficient heat source and that can be an area of overlap, and then also just, especially for lower income communities. As our climate gets hotter, having the ability to actually cool a space efficiently and at low cost is going to be really important. And so energy efficiency can be a way to have lower the cost of keeping a space livable. Thank you. And feel free to ask follow up questions to in the chat if you if you have any. So we have a couple people here that were questioning 57 gigawatts actually saw that on the slide to that would be amazing if we had 57 gigawatts that were installed last year it looks like maybe a typo. Yes, we can. I wanted to congratulate those folks for being so astute and paying attention. Yeah, exactly. I will correct that. We're just making sure you're paying attention. And it's always good to pepper those things in your presentations and then you know that everybody is listening to what you're saying on your toes. So thank you for those. Okay, let me. I'm going to jump to someone who hasn't had a question yet and then come back to you. So, Bill kidness is asked, can you give us a high altitude view of your perspective on further integration with New Mexico's higher education institutions great question. Thank you. This is a good question. And so, you know, as somebody who's new to New Mexico and new to the state. You know, a lot of the past year has just been sort of building some foundational relationships and having initial conversations we have been in touch with a number of the higher education institutes in the community and also our department of higher education is engaged with the climate change task force. So I think there's a lot of potential there for us to be working more together, and definitely look forward to finding some specific ways to implement that instead of just these sort of high level connections. Okay, great. Thank you and potentially higher ed representatives will be on the grid modernization task force as well. Yes, a question. This is very innovative but seems like a big project how will the more modern infrastructure be beneficial to the newer workers so if I'm interpreting this this question correctly are there new areas of opportunity for recent graduates to get into you think like a new green economy that needs to be filled by the next generation. Definitely. And so, if you noticed on the slide one of our climate action teams is economic transition. And so, we've got the economic development department, the workforce solutions department, also our corrections department higher education, public development department as well as, you know, us here at energy and minerals and so I think, you know, while it may be in early stages, there's definitely a lot of concerted attention to how can we not just sort of assume that the government is going to lead to great jobs but actually consciously develop pathways to those jobs, whether that's in clean energy, or also in the natural working land sector. There's a lot of skilled labor that the forestry division will need to implement some of the work that they're trying to do around forest restoration and managing wildfire. I think there's definitely a lot of great opportunity there. And, you know, one thing to call out is the energy transition act included provisions that require a certain level or percent of workers be apprentices or in apprenticeship programs. So, the workforce solutions is actually in the process of approving the first solar apprenticeship program in the state. And so it's a really kind of cool example of seeing those career pathways forming. It's really cool to know about the solar apprenticeship program, I'll have to learn more. So I got a question through the chat here and it says, can you discuss specifics of education efforts that you hope to employ to change behavior throughout the state. And this is probably primarily pertains to energy efficiency, but maybe other areas. Yeah, so we are starting with a couple of units on energy conservation and energy efficiency. We are in the beginning stages, but what we're trying to do is take some really great do we look at things and things that the department was working with in the 80s and 90s, believe it or not, and update those in the framework of the new next generation science standards which are much more interactive or much more inquiry based or much more about students designing and exploring their own kind of questions. And so we're trying to work within that framework, also doing things that of course will support what teachers, the standards that teachers have to already put in place. And yeah, we hope to have some interactive things. I think we're attuned to the fact that if we want anything to roll out quickly, it's going to have to be accessible online, right. So we have to have to have be able for teachers to access and use it with virtual in the virtual setting so we're trying to work on that as well. I'm happy to answer any other specific questions about it but we're really excited about it. Like I said we're in the beginning stages of it, but we are a few of us who are former teachers on staff. So this is one of our pet projects that we're really excited about. Fantastic. Great. We got to hear about that. Okay, so we have two minutes and I've saved the best question for last. What do you believe is the real reason slash cause for slash of climate change. Yeah, I believe personally believe the science of the the international scientific consensus that greenhouse gases and the emission of those from a lot of our human activities are the probably largest contributor to the climate change that we're seeing today and you know, you can see that we're we're trying to tackle that head on with the emissions targets that our governor has set and really want to work towards, you know, making as much progress as fast as we can to reduce that. Excellent. Thank you. Well, I want to thank you both again for taking the time today for us to have the opportunity to hear about the current events in policy and the ways that our research might feed into some of the policy work in the state. So thanks again and thanks to all of you for attending today. And also we'll, we'll have this posted up on the website and the slides afterwards and don't forget our next webinar on August 26 at noon on communicating science. See you all later. Have a great day. Thank you.